Pikes Peak Radio Control Club Newsletter

Transcription

1 Pikes Peak Radio Control Club Newsletter Volume 43 / Issue 06 / AMA Club Number 179 / 2616 Glen Arbor Dr. / Colorado Springs, Colorado Phone: / Website: Club President Eric Sauley / Club Vice President James Murphy Club Safety Officer Ben Woofter / Club Treasurer Adam Heffington Club Secretary Keith Davis / Club Newsletter & Website Manager Keith Davis Next PPRCC Meeting: Local RC events happening this month: 7:00pm / June 2nd (Tue) 2015 Warbirds over Antelope Ridge Community Center Warbirds over Pikes Peak Last Month s Minutes... (May meeting) Meeting Started: 7:00 pm Meeting Adjourned: 8:20 pm Members Attended: 29 New Members: 0 Visitors: 0 New Business: Old Business: 1) The Warbirds over Pikes Peak is this month! (June 21-22). All PPRCC members are encouraged to come out for one or both days, either to fly, volunteer or just be a spectator. Club member Greg Moore will be this year s Event Coordinator (EC). Airplane Anomalies... 1) Club Vice President James Murphy, informed everyone that the recent gate lock was broken and has been replaced with a new lock. However, the current gate combination remains the same. 2) Club Treasurer Adam Heffington, spoke about the club s April finances. Minor expenses were purchased, to include a new gate lock and a new set of club checks. 3) Club member Austin Clies, spoke about the recent USAFA indoor field house flying event. He explained how the Soaring Society Club assisted the cadets in building and flying their airplane projects to achieve maximum flight distance. Austin said that It was a good 3-day event and hopes that more local RC clubs can participate in the future. During airshows, pilots love to impress the crowd, sometimes they get very impressive. PPRCC Newsletter 1

2 Ben Woofter Airfield Safety While the flying season starts to get busier each weekend, Ben the club Safety Officer, has already observed and corrected a few No-No s at the airfield. Do not taxi your plane through the pit areas while standing on the opposite end of the pit area. Stay with your plane. Flying from the center of the runways are permitted only if you are the only pilot, or if a second pilots agrees to fly from the same spot. If other pilots are waiting to fly while you are at the center, you must move to either end of the runway so that others may fly too. Show & Tell Item - I Larry Sipe s Ziroli B-25B Project Let s stay safe out there! Ben Woofter - Flight Instructor Ben is also PPRCC s primary flight instructor. Flight training is every Sunday, from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. Ben has the training schedule for the other club flight instructors, so track him down if you have not received your schedule yet! Flight training is free of charge! Larry gave us an update on his Mitchell B-25B project. One of the two EME 60cc gas engines is now installed, both outer wing sections are finished and the tail section is nearly complete. Not sure if it will be completed before Warbirds over Pikes Peak, but it is coming along nicely. PPRCC Newsletter 2

3 Can You Name that Plane? Clue #1: Designed during WWII, the idea was to build one type of airframe but incorporate two aircraft mission types; the single-engine version would be the fighter and the twin-engine version would be the bomber. Show & Tell Item - II Matt Gardner s Coyot-E plans built foamy Clue #2: The fighter version had a high front wing and a low rear wing while the bomber version had a low front wing and a high rear wing. On both planes, the front wing contained flaps and the elevators, while the rear wing contained flaps and the ailerons. Clue #3: Two prototypes were built and several successful test flights were completed before the project was cancelled. Last month s airplane: The German Dornier D0-24 Flying Boat. Mr. James Murphy came up with the correct answer! Matt copied the plans out of the AMA magazine, November issue and doubled it in size. It s now called the Coyot-Ex2. Built with foam and balsa, it will have a 96 ws and powered by an electric motor and a 3-4 cell battery. Matt said that he should have it flying pretty soon. PPRCC Newsletter 3

4 Airfield Projects for 2015 If you have been out to the airfield in recent weeks, you may noticed that the four old porta-potties are now gone and replaced with two brand new portapotties. That project was completed several weeks ago, thanks to several of our club members that spent a weekend installing them. The plan is to cut out all 14 cracks on the west side, then fill it with cement. The cuts have already been completed. The next step is to remove the asphalt out of 3-4 cracks at a time, then fill the cracks with cement. It may take some time in doing it this way, but at least it will not shut down the runway completely if all the cracks were dug out at once. Once the cracks are filled, the cement will be painted black to blend in with the runway. We hope the project will be completed before the June warbirds event. Of course it all depends on the weather! Chuck Brath s Bobcat made the work a whole lot easier! Mission complete, the bathrooms are now open! The next major project to tackle, is repairing the runways. Plans are still being worked out to seal the east runway. Hopefully that will be accomplished sometime this summer. However, the west runway and taxiways are a priority in getting repaired. We have already heard several incidents where planes with smaller wheels, have broken off or busted a prop because the plane got stuck in one of the many cracks on the west runway. The cuts have been made to remove the asphalt. The asphalt will then be remove and filled with cement. Then on Saturday, June 6 th, during the field maintenance day, all of the plastic green safety fences will be taken down and replaced with a more durable chicken wire fence. During that same day, other minor projects will be done in preparation for this summer s flying events (mowing, removing cacti, painting, etc). Volunteers would be greatly appreciated during that day, just remember to bring a pair of work gloves! PPRCC Newsletter 4

5 West Runway Repairs in progress Here s a few more photos of the work being done on the west runway. This is what s going on: Several of the large cracks have been edged, jackhammered out, then the chunks of asphalt are loaded into a truck, then taken to a local asphalt crusher. The crushed asphalt is then brought back to the airfield and used to level out the airfield access road. In the meantime, the dug-out cracks will be filled with cement, then painted black and sealed. With weather permitting, the west runway should be back in action before the PPRCC warbirds event! This is one of several cracks that have been cut and cleared in preparation for cement. With the help of Chuck Brath s heavy equipment, lots of the hard labor is not so hard! The almost final product. The cement has been poured, it just needs to be painted black and sealed. Despite the overcast and chilly day, several volunteers did come out for the exercise. PPRCC wants to thank everyone that came out to assist in any way that they could. And a special thanks to club member Chuck Brath for bringing out all his heavy equipment to help get the job done. (Dump truck, air compressor, jack hammer and his bobcat with all the attachments! PPRCC Newsletter 5

6 Civil Air Patrol Flyers Despite all of the recent rains, club members Ben Woofter and Karl Prince did manage to get in a day in May of flight training on six Civil Air Patrol (CAP) cadets from the Colorado Springs Cadet Squadron, based out of Peterson AFB and Meadow Lake Airport. "Karl on the left and Ben somewhere on the right, were busy most of the morning getting flights in between the rain showers!" The CAP visit was planned and scheduled several weeks ago, assuming that it would be a bright, sunny day, the day of the flight training. But someone forgot to tell Mother Nature to put it on her calendar too! But that did not slow down the enthusiasm for the cadets to still get a little wet and fly. It didn't stop Ben or Karl either! "Ben completes a few quick checks before takeoff and away he goes!" He and the cadet got a few laps in on the 3rd flight and the rains forced them down once again." "The CAP cadets gather around as the senior cadet gives them brief instructions on the 2.4ghz radio." Flight training was conducted on the Apprentice club trainer and another larger electric trainer. Even though no one brought their rain gear, everyone had a good time, either flying, talking about flying or wish they were flying. The CAP Squadron plans on scheduling several more flying events for the cadets this summer. We'll be watching! PPRCC Newsletter 6

7 You're Worth Millions! I believe at one of the recent club meetings, information was put out that AMA will cover a valid AMA member up to $1.0 million dollars in liability. Show & Tell Item III Keith Davis Texas RC Airplanes PT-19 Well that's not exactly true, a little while ago, I came across an AMA advertisement in a FLY RC magazine and it states that a valid AMA member is covered up to $2.5 million dollars in liability. It also lists a few other coverage plans that some of us may not be aware of. So there you go, you can cause damage up to $2.5 million dollars and be covered. But please don't do it! "Portion of the AMA ad from FLY RC magazine. July 2015 / Issue 140." Do You have a story, article or a photo that you would like to share with the club? Get it to me at: Lkdavis03@hotmail.com Keith Davis: PPRCC Newsletter Editor Don't learn RC Safety by accident! "Even though Keith does not plan on working on this until next year, he brought it in to announce that this will be his first gaspowered airplane. It will have a DLE-61cc engine and smoke. The plane has a 110" ws and should weigh around 22 pounds." PPRCC Newsletter 7

8 It's PPRCC Warbirds Time! Giant RC's from Around the World Well, it is the June Newsletter, which means our War Birds event is just several weeks away - are you ready? Warbirds can be foam, fiberglass, balsa and ply or any combination of them and any size. You can spend months or years on a large scratch build, or a few hours with a nicely fabricated foam ARF - which is essentially ready to fly! The question is, why not have at least 75% of our membership participate? If you don't have a plane ready to go, why not be one of the 10 or so members we need to help with parking, registration and safety split over the course of the day? If we can get more helping, it means less time for each "working" and more time flying/playing/watching and talking - you know, the things we enjoy doing while we're at the field. Bristol Beaufighter Country - England You can still get a T28 Trojan from Dan inexpensively - (and that model flys fantastically) and takes less than an evening to assemble. Volunteers needed for: (2) Gate greeter (2) Registration (2) Flightline Safety / Controller (1) QUAD vehicle for plane recovery See you at the meeting, and I hope everyone plans on coming out to support OUR club. Greg Moore, Warbirds over Pikes Peak Event Coordinator (EC) Boeing B747 Country - France Sopwith Camel Country USA PPRCC Newsletter 8

9 Show & Tell Item - IV Ben Woofter's Airfield RC Corsair Show & Tell Item - V Duane Zinke's Corsair Hybrid "Ben recently purchased a foamy F4U Corsair complete with motor, ESC, flaps, electric retracts and a 4-blade prop. Ben has already completed several flights on the plane and it does look nice! This will be Ben's backup plane for the upcoming warbirds events this year." "Duane gathered several parts from numerous planes (Corsair body, T-28 landing gear, trainer wing and whatever else he found!) and built his Corsair hybrid. The plane has a 60" ws and powered by a Saito.65 engine. Duane has not flown the plane yet." PPRCC Newsletter 9

10 Meadow Lake Airport Open House Saturday - June 13th 2015 Show & Tell Item - VI Rod Hart's Hanger Nine Jackal During the event, PPRCC Rod Hart (Point of Contact for the event) and a few other club members will be participating in the open house with RC airplane static displays. If you are interested in participating too, just get with Rod and he will give you all the details! "For only $129 from Hanger 9, Rod decided to buy this Jackal (ARF) and see if it can fly mph as advertised. But so far the weather has kept him grounded. Rod installed a Magnum.52 engine, the plane has a 53" ws and comes with retracts." PPRCC Newsletter 10

11 NATS Nationals Colorado Springs, CO June 8th - 12th 2015 NATS Schedule PPRCC Newsletter 11

12 Upcoming RC Events: June 2 nd (Tue) 2015 PPRCC Meeting & Mini Swap Meet June 6 th (Sat) 2015 PPRCC Field Clean-Up Day June 13th (Sat) Meadow Lake Airport Open House June 13 th 14 th (Sat-Sun) 2015 Warbirds over Denver June 21 st 22 nd (Sat-Sun) 2015 Warbirds over Pikes Peak July 7 th (Tue) 2015 PPRCC Meeting July 18 th (Sat) 2015 PPRCC Electric Fly-In PPRCC Newsletter 12